A few dozen people gathered at City Hall on Friday for a special meeting where the City Council voted to censure Alderman Paul Northcut.

While the general consensus among the crowd at Friday’s city council meeting was that Northcut should have kept his remarks private, not everyone called for his resignation.

“I think what he should have done is discuss it privately with that person,” Raul Torres, assistant director of Main Street Mission, said. “But I think we need people like Chaplain (Northcut) to represent the city.”

Torres praised Northcut’s apology — which Northcut said he sent to member of the Planning Commission, but The Courier was not able to obtain a copy of before press time Friday — and said the city should move on from the matter.

High school teacher Paul Gray agreed Northcut should keep his personal beliefs out of public office.

“I don’t know if he ought to resign or not, but I do know the voters will have a chance to decide that in November,” Gray said. “I think Mr. Northcut needs to realize that his personal standard is one thing, but he can’t hold other people to his beliefs.”

Resident Bruce Futterer said he agreed with the action taken by the council on Friday.

“I don’t feel good about (Northcut’s) activity,” Futterer said. “I feel good about the actions of the city council in censuring him, and I feel good about living in the city of Russellville today.”

Friday’s meeting came after an email sent by Northcut to aldermen and other city officials expressing concern about the re-appointment of the three commissioners, although Northcut only mentioned Nick Patel — who later withdrew his bid for re-appointment — by name. In his email, Northcut noted “problems we have had with the Hispanic Nightclubs on S. Arkansas” and “more importantly — how close the city came to allowing a homosexual club to open in downtown Russellville (sic),” although a business permit application for the venue was withdrawn and was never considered by city officials.

“Based on the past actions of that commission I don’t have a lot of confidence in the way that they have done their job,” Northcut wrote.